Tag / fish-ball

One of my favorite Penang hawker foods is Kuih Teow Soup, or commonly spelled as Kuih Teow Th’ng in Hokkien. It is one of the few comfort foods you can have at any time of the day, any stomach “health” level since it’s soupy and isn’t spicy.

Anson Road market kuih teow th’ng

I was first introduced to this Anson Road market kuih teow th’ng by my mom when she ‘tapao’ a packet for us for breakfast. It immediately became one of my favorites, so I made it a mission to have it at the market itself the following trip back.

kuih teow, chicken, fish ball, and the all important coagulated blood

On the Sunday morning that I went for this, the stall was predictably very busy. I had to wait for 20+ minutes before being served.

The kuih teow soup here is surprisingly simple, with strips of chicken meat & some skin, fish ball, choi sum (vegetable), silky soft kuih teow, fried garlic oil, and most importantly – coagulated chicken blood. While some places utilizes duck meat for a stronger taste, this stall somehow managed to come up with the chicken based soup that’s very sweet and savory in taste, I love it.

I’m a happy camper, definitely worth waking up for

If you don’t mind a bit of wait, this place is definitely worth checking out. Get there before 9+ in the morning though cos they usually sold out early.

We have a friend in Winnie, who also goes by the nickname of hamsup (the origin of this is your extra credit homework, thank you very much).

When hamsup was working near my office, we used to have lunch every once in a while, but since she moved on to greener pasture, that has dwindled a bit, so we spent a bit of time catching up a bit over dinner at Bone & Pot (有骨气) at Kelana Jaya just the other day.

Bone and Pot at Kelana Jaya – plenty of soup choices

Bone and Pot is located opposite Kelana Jaya LRT station, parking is usually not a headache inducing exercise. The restaurant is clean, modern, and equipped with working air conditioning system that makes having a steamboat dinner a rather enjoyable affair.

For those who prefer sniffing haze and enjoying the great outdoor with smoking allowed, there’s the alfresco area as well.

fried beancurd, chicken “soft bone”, and squid with salt and pepper

While waiting for hamsup, we started with a few deep fried dishes to line our stomach.

The golden bean curd (RM 5.80) is a rather surprising dish, surprising in how soft and smooth the bean curd actually is, and with that golden slightly crunchy skin, makes a fabulous starter.

Salt and pepper chicken soft bone (RM 11.80) reminded me of the dish I had at Sumi Ka Yakitori at Subang, except this is in a deep fried form, equally as tasty. Salt and Pepper squid (RM 8.80) did not disappoint either, but I thought having 3 dishes that shares the same type of sauce (Thai chili sauce) was perhaps a bit too monotonous in retrospect.

Like other steamboat places, there’s plenty of fish ball/pork ball choices available. We had cheese ball (RM 8.80 for 4), home made pork ball (RM 6.90 for 4), squid ball (RM 7.90 for 4), shrimp ball (RM 8.90 for 4) and mushroom with home made pork ball (RM 7.90 for 4) and fish dumpling (RM 4.80 for 6 pieces)

These “balls” mostly have pretty firm texture, with the cheese ball particularly interesting. I like them all, but couldn’t really taste anything other than the dumpling skin from the fish dumpling though. That’s one that I would probably skip.

beef slices, pork neck slices, lamb slices, pork intestine, and vege

Meat wise we had fresh lamb slices (RM 15.90), fresh beef slices (RM 16.90), and pork neck slices (RM 15.90). These are frozen meat that requires less than a couple minutes in the boiling soup. A word of advice – don’t leave them on the table too long lest you want the meat to go limp. They were fresh and we enjoyed em much.

Pork intestine (RM 8.90) came pre-cooked and thus you don’t need to worry about it messing up the taste of the steamboat soup, portion was definitely a little too much for this dish as only Horng and I ended up eating them. The girls did not share our palette for this particular internal organ. This goes very well with the sauce.

Finally, no steamboat is complete without vegetable, we had water cress (RM 4.90) and rocket (RM 5.50), and together they gave us all the vitamin C we needed for the next day (I think).

As for the choice of soup, Bone & Pot offers some interesting choices. There’s their signature pork bone broth, pepper pork broth, preserved eggs with Chinese parsley broth, Tomyam broth, and the our choice of the night – tomato and potato broth. This is rather different from the usual clear soup and tomyam soup choices at other places.

Towards the end of our meal, the broth became very similar to HK style borscht soup, unique, filling, and complimented the mostly meat and processed seafood ingredients that we had.

With drinks, we ended up spending a tad over RM 30 per person at Bone & Pot. I consider it a place worth visiting again, the soup is top notch, ingredients are fresh, service generally pretty good, and while you do pay a slight premium, it is in line with what is offered.

The Kampar Noodle stall at Sun Hin Loong was recommended by @AquariaKLCC via twitter (in fact, the whole topic of kampar noodle came from there).

Kampar Noodle at Sun Hin Loong kopitiam, SS2

So I headed over there twice to get a taste of what the fuss is about. First was the soup version of Kampar Fish Ball Mee, and the second visit, their dry variety.

Kampar fishball noodle – dry version

Both versions cost the same (RM 5.50 if I remember correctly), and you get five different types of fish ball / fish cake ingredients that comes with the soup. The dry version serves the noodle (or meehun, or kuih teow) separately with dark source, but otherwise they are the same.

… and they are good! The ingredients were all tasty, and I do like the chili paste that was served with as well. I constantly wish that there were more of every type of those fish ball thingy though. It was never enough!

the five different types of fish ball / fish paste items

The only “problem” that I have is that Sun Hin Loong can be a bit too hot in the afternoon, and sometimes a bit too crowded too. Then there’s the SS2 parking situation…

To be honest, growing up in Penang, I never really knew what Kampar fish ball noodle is all about. It was one of those hawker dishes that never really made much inroads to the island, much like pan mee and laksa Sarawak, and thus, rarely came up in my radar.

Then, a few weeks ago, someone asked me on twitter for a recommendation on Kampar fish ball noodle. Not knowing which is a good place to have this dish, I in turn asked around, and another fellow twitter user led me to Kedai Kopi Khoong at Seapark.

A good example of social media in everyday use

Kampar fish noodle – with variety of fish balls

I’ve actually been to this kopitiam quite a number of times, mostly to have the old men’s Chinese desserts in the afternoon (they are operated by VSOP club – which stands for Very Strong Old People). Little did I know that the kopitiam actually has Kampar Fish Ball Noodle in its signboard.

I ordered a bowl of the dry version Kampar fish ball noodle (RM 5)

I counted 5 types of fish balls & fish cake

Like most hawker noodle dishes, you can choose from kuih teow, mee hun, yellow noodle, etc.

My version came with noodle with a bit of dark sauce and accompanying five different ingredients – deep fried stuffed fuchok, deep fried fish ball, bouncy soup fish ball, a less bouncy version, and fried stuffed tofu. As per standard Kampar noodle, the condiment is a little plate of spicy chili sauce that has the consistency that’s quite similar to bottled chili sauce, but a lot hotter.

Did I like it? Yeah, with my limited experience in Kampar noodle, I did find that it was a pretty tasty affair. I like the variety that comes with the dish, furthermore, the soup was quite flavorful too.

If you haven’t had much Kampar noodle, perhaps it is time to try. For those who are more of an expert, what’s your favorite Kampar noodle stall?

Despite staying only some 1 km away from B & Best restaurant, I only got to know of this place recently when I read it on Huai Bin’s blog a week ago. Since I’m quite a big fan of fish and seafood noodle, I paid a visit there with Rachel and Horng last weekend.

As there are only a couple restaurants in the two rows of shop lots at Taman Rasa Sayang, SS4, parking is not at all a problem. The restaurant is basically a rather big kopitiam with the seafood noodle being the lone operator for breakfast and lunch session.

There are quite a lot of choices here. Any one or the combination of prawn (2 types), fish (choose from pomphret, red snapper, grouper, and more), lala, oyster, fish ball, and fish cake. They serve noodle, meehun, kueh teow, lou she fun, mee shua, and porridge. And of course, you can have it the kon lou (dry), soup, or spicy style.

I ordered the standard seafood noodle with 2 added prawns, horng got a bowl of fish soup (red snapper) with dry lou she fun, while Rachel went for seafood noodle with a bit of customization (no shellfish). We also ordered a fish cake to share (RM7)

The seafood, and especially the fish meat, was really fresh and succulent. There were also plenty of lala in the mix. Though not lacking in taste, I did expect the prawns to be bigger. Over all it was a very good bowl of seafood noodle, with fresh ingredients and not overly strong tasting. Perfect for breakfast/brunch.

i really love the sambal

The one thing I really love though, is their sambal belacan. It is actually quite difficult to find this particular type of no nonsense sambal belacan where the ingredients are just red chili, belacan, and a squeeze of lime. It reminds me of those I had at Mum’s place, Damansara Perdana.